Skip to main content

brokenly

"brokenly"
mixed media collage on found book cover
gregory a. milinovich

broken. the word of the day, as far as i can tell. broken like the surface of the skin, pierced by pounding fear-turned-to-hate. broken like bread. broken like a torn tunic, or a curtain ripped down the middle with the stark sound of threads splitting. broken like glass - shattered - into a million unfixable pieces. broken.

i know about brokenness. i live it everyday. when i wake up my knee hurts and my back aches: my body is broken, not the way it was meant to be. when i choose to read the day's sports news rather than pay attention to my wife, or when i yell at my kids for something petty: my relationships are broken, not the way they were meant to be. when i choose my own gratification over the needs of another, when i neglect my own need to be full of love for God and others: my spirit is broken, not the way it was meant to be.

i am not the way i was meant to be.

i am broken.

but today i remember that i am not left alone in my brokenness. in what is one of the greatest mysteries of our faith, i believe that God, in the form of humanity, decided to be broken with me, in the most obscene and egregious of ways. today i remember that the love Jesus had is the kind of love that suffers with the beloved. today i remember that Jesus suffered utter and complete brokenness ("my God, why have you forsaken me?") because he loves us and refused to allow anything to keep us from him.

so, yes, i am broken, split, sharded and scarred. but i am not alone. and even as the darkness descends upon this day, and the brokenness of life gives way to the cold emptiness of death, i hold fast to faith that brokenness is not the end of the story.

have a blessed good friday. may you know, in a new way, not only your own brokenness, but also the brokenness of Jesus for your sake.


Comments

Crafty P said…
mmm, good thoughts. thanks for that. still learning to live with my brokenness, too.

have a blessed and good friday.
Greg C. said…
Amen friend.
cathyq said…
I am reminded of the song "Broken and poured out." Why He did it is sometimes difficult to grasp, but how blessed we are that He did. "Lord, heal our brokeness."

Popular posts from this blog

bad haircuts (for a laugh)

everybody needs to laugh.  one good way i have found to make that happen is to do a simple google image search for 'bad haircut.'  when you do so, some of the following gems show up.  thankfully, my 9th grade school picture does NOT show up.  otherwise, it would certianly make this list!  please laugh freely and without inhibition.  thank you and have a nice day. 

happiness is dry underwear

we started potty training jack on thursday. we followed a program called POTTY TRAIN IN ONE DAY, which, by the way, i think is kind of crazy. i mean, if someone were to offer you a book called, "ACHIEVE WORLD PEACE IN ONE DAY" i don't think you would take it seriously. and yet here we are, trying to accomplish an equally daunting task in one 24-hour period. it is intense. the day is shrouded in a lie because as soon as your happily diapered child wakes up you tell him that it is a big party. we had balloons and streamers and noisemakers and silly string - all the trappings of a legitimate party. but it is most certainly not a party. it is a hellishly exhausting day. as soon as jack got out of bed, we gave him a present: an anatomically correct doll that wets himself. jack named him quincy. several times quincy successfully peed in the potty and even had an accident or two in his "big boy underwear." he also dropped a deuce that looked and smelled sus

the crucifixion of Robert Lewis

  "the crucifixion of Robert Lewis" mixed media collage with leaves, acrylic paint, and found objects by gregory a milinovich october 2023 this october i was invited to participate in a three day trip which was called a "pilgrimage of pain and hope."  while that may not sound super exciting to many of you, it actually really intrigued me.  i am the kind of person that wants to feel big feelings, and i am drawn to the deep places, so  i was interested in traveling to the scranton area, where the trip was planned, to see what it might look like to be a pilgrim that was wide-eyed and listening to the pain and the hope in the stories of others.   this trip included hearing the stories of immigrants to the northeastern pennsylvania area, and the work in the coal mines that many of them did.  it included hearing from folks who are working for housing justice and equity in downtown scranton.  it included hearing from those indigenous people who first inhabited that land.